Texas' Stout Defense in Week 1 Perfect Start for Charlie Strong Era

For the last several months, head coach Charlie Strong has promised Longhorn faithful that he would bring toughness back to Texas football.

The Longhorns delivered with a dominant defensive performance that produced four interceptions in a 38-7 victory over North Texas on Saturday night.

North Texas' lone touchdown came on a David Ash end-zone fumble that the Mean Green defense recovered.

In other words, the Longhorns defense shut out its opponent's offense. The defense held the Mean Green to 94 total yards of offense, and the longest play it gave up was eight yards.

"You have to be very pleased with that on defense," Strong said of the defense not giving up a play longer than 10 yards. "If you're ever going to win a championship, you have to play great defense. And the defense kind of sets a tone for the whole game."

Some critics will look at this game and say the defense was only good because North Texas' offense had a lot of holes. But when was the last time a Texas defense held a Division I offense to 15 passing yards?

Better yet, when was the last time Texas held an opponent to less than 100 yards of total offense?

No matter who the opponent is, Texas' defense deserves a lot of credit for the performance it put up Saturday night.

"Keeping a team under 100 yards and shutting out its offense is what we are looking for," senior linebacker Jordan Hicks said. "They had just as much time to prepare for us as we had to prepare for them. They're Division I college football players as well, so I think we played well."

This increased toughness is something the Longhorns defense has lacked since 2011. Let's not sugar coat it: Texas' defensive performances in 2012 and 2013 were downright atrocious at times. And giving up big plays was a constant issue.

But the defense came out of the tunnel with fire in its eyes and will need to maintain that fire moving forward.

Next week, Texas will face a BYU team which embarrassed the defense in stunning fashion last season.

"I told them to enjoy this one, be ready and come back to work tomorrow," Strong said. "We are going to face a team that played well in their opener. And they are a team that embarrassed us last season with a quarterback who ran the ball all over our defense."

The Cougars return junior quarterback Taysom Hill, who was responsible for 259 yards of BYU's 550 total rushing yards against the Longhorns in 2013. Hill led the Cougars with 97 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in a win over Connecticut on Friday night.

But the Texas defense is determined to shut down the talented quarterback and has been preparing to seek redemption since last year.

"It's one of those games that will go down in history," defensive end Cedric Reed said of last year's BYU performance. "We've had BYU marked on our calendars."

The Longhorns will be able to silence any critics if they keep this momentum going, which is something Texas desperately needs to do to shed the "soft" label that has haunted the Longhorns defense since 2012.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.

Taylor Gaspar is Bleacher Report's featured columnist covering the Texas Longhorns. Follow her on Twitter: @Taylor_Gaspar.